To keep a tighter check on investments, the pension regulator has decided to appoint auditors for the pension fund managers (PFMs) and schemes of the National Pension System (NPS). Fund managers will also be expected to make full disclosure of scheme-wise investments on their websites.

“As the NPS gets more subscribers, there is a need to keep a tighter check on investments being made by the fund managers… That is why we have made the reporting and audit norms more stringent,” said a senior PFRDA official.

The auditors, for which the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has recently issued guidelines, will review the performance of schemes under the NPS as well as investments made by the fund managers. They will also be expected to audit prepare financial and annual reports of schemes managed by each of the fund manager.

The new norms, which will make it mandatory for fund managers to make their investment portfolio public, comes after concerns that some of them were violating the investment ceilings and more worryingly, investing in products issued by their promoter groups.

The issue was raised late last year by some members of the NPS Trust who later ordered checks on the portfolios of the scheme’s seven fund managers after quarterly review of their performance revealed that they had violated investment norms.